At some point during development, Hideo Kojima made some changes to Death Stranding 2: On the Beach because the game was doing too well during playtests and wasn’t polarizing enough, according to the game’s co-composer.

Speaking in a lengthy interview with Rolling Stone, French composer Woodkid talked about working with Hideo Kojima on the game and how challenging it was to write music that changes in real time while playing, and how difficult it was to put together the eclectic mix of musical genres the game’s soundtrack features. When asked, at the end of the interview, about something essential the composer learned working on the game, Woodkid mentioned how, one day, Hideo Kojima confirmed his intention of making changes to the game because it was being too well-received in play tests. These changes, which reportedly include some script changes and the way some important events play out, were meant to make the game more polarizing, trigger more emotions and ensure people would love the game after initially disliking it, as this is how something gets loved for real, Kojima-san reportedly said.

This isn’t the first time we have heard about Hideo Kojima not being too happy with Death Stranding 2: On the Beach’s positive reception during play tests. Last month, the legendary game creator commented on the matter with Edge Magazine, saying that he wished the game would be more controversial, as he isn’t interested in developing games with mass market appeal. To see if the game will indeed be less controversial than its predecessor, we won’t have to wait long, as it will launch on PlayStation 5 next week, on June 26th.